It's likely you already made a choice but in case you have not and others that might find themselves in a similar position in the future I will comment. First, when pondering a career in public service, you must consider how much the degree costs. Most public policy graduates don't land lucrative jobs right away like our counterparts at top MBA or Law schools. For example, the equivalent consulting position offered to a UVA or Georgetown MBA will start with a salary over $50,000 higher than their MPP counterparts. You can't undervalue cost of attendance. An MPP graduate from either Georgetown or UVA will lead to a successful career, and you will make enough money to pay your student loan and live a comfortable life.
But ask yourself, is any school worth hundreds of dollars more a month for 10+ years? After you reach certain tiers of institutions, specific differences don't matter as much and cost should become a deciding factor. Georgetown and UVA are in the same echelon. Remember, going to graduate school is as much about gaining more education/skills as it is signaling to the job market you are an acceptable candidate. For the record, if Georgetown was cheaper I would argue you should go to Georgetown. If the both schools cost exactly the same, you probably should still choose Georgetown but I don't think the gap in schools are as big as one might think.
Okay, with that out of the way I will give you my admittedly bias take. I earned my MPP from Batten and went to undergrad at UVA. I am not familiar with strengths and weaknesses of Georgetown so I can not speak to that.
I will say when considering any professional school, particularly public policy school, you should consider the overall institution's reputation. For example, I doubt anyone would choose either UVA or Georgetown over Harvard or Princeton. With that said, UVA and Georgetown's reputation are about equal. Both have a strong alumni base in Washington with graduates who will help you land an outstanding internship and job. Both place many graduates into the PMF program, and both send a lot of graduates into public sector consulting.
While Batten is a new school, UVA has an established track record of creating outstanding professional schools. UVA's law and architecture schools are consistently ranked in the top 10, and the business ranked in the top 15. All of UVA's professional schools are better regarded than Georgetown's (slightly but still). This matters for two reasons. Firstly, as a student at UVA, you can take classes in all these schools. I completed 18 credit hours outside of Batten. Secondly, after a few years, most folks care more about the overall reputation of the Univeristy more than the specific reputation of the school you went to. Additionally, student quality does not vary as much as you might think from graduate school to graduate school -- here is UVA's GPA/GRE/GMAT statistics as proof. The punchline? A University admits about the same quality of student across all of its schools. As mentioned above, Georgetown and UVA are roughly equivalent.
Anecdotally, if my classmates are any indication, Batten can help get you where you want to go. They have landed at:
World Bank
IMF
State Department
Congressional staffers
International development: Chemonix among other places
Multiple PMFs with rotations at OMB, Labor, White House, Dept. of Education, State
Consulting: Bain, Mckinsey, Deloitte, Accenture, Navigant
Goldman Sachs
Think tanks: Brookings, Center for American Progress, American Enterprise Insitute, Pew
City / State Government including state of Virginia and NYC
Federal Reserve
FBI
CIA
Other competitive fellowships
I would argue Batten places its graduates comparatively as well as UVA's other top professional schools. The school has a lot of resources and deploys them to ensure their graduates are successful. I would also argue, UVA has more to offer than Georgetown. It is a bigger University. If you want, you can take classes in any school you wish. UVA is consistently excellent in all of its graduate education. Yes, you are not in Washington but being a few hours removed has its advantages. Furthermore, it does not stop UVA from bringing top government officials and scholars to grounds to speak and teach. I encourage you to check out the folks Batten brings to ground but also UVA's politics department and the Miller Center for Public Affairs (an institution with $100 million endowment dedicated to public policy/history research).
Keep in mind any public policy school will not automatically hand you a career path in quite the same way a top Law school or an MBA program will. You will need to put considerable effort into your internship and job search. But with equal effort applied at either Georgetown or UVA, I doubt the outcomes would differ all that much.
I have not talked about the education experience. I found Batten provides ample opportunity to work on real-world policy projects with high-level policy professionals. I was offered both my internship and job based on projects I completed in the classroom. For my capstone, I was able to work with a senior official at a government agency. Additionally, I was able to meet and speak with the top experts in my chosen field. UVA/Batten helped me gain the access, but ultimately I made it happen by cold calling alumni.
I would presume, at Georgetown, less effort is required to craft the educational experience to fit your needs. The program is more established, larger and has more developed specialties. This is both good and bad. Just know, I found you can make your Batten experience and education whatever you want it to be. You can leverage the entire UVA institution, not just the Batten School, to launch an exciting and rewarding career.
Plus, if it is cheaper, why not Batten?
